i5-2500k build.

I'd switch the MoBo to the Asus P8Z68 LE at that price point. Everything else looks great.
 
Ah, I see. In that case, it's a decent choice for the money, imo.
 
I would not go with that AsRock on account of how bad the other AsRock Z68 motherboards faired in HardOCP reviews:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/12/07/asrock_z68_pro3_lga_1155_motherboard_review/
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/09/asrock_z68_extreme4_gen3_motherboard_review/

Considering how bad the more expensive Extreme4 Gen3 did, that doesn't give much hope that the Extreme3 Gen3 will be decent. I recommend spending the extra ~$43 (once you factor in the shipping cost of that AsRock mobo) for a better quality motherboard:
$180 - Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3 Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard

Another option:
$165 - Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard

Also, don't bother with going with RAM above DDR3 1600. It's a total waste with current Intel platforms.
 
All good alternatives except for the memory. 8GB at that price point is a bad purchase decision for an 1155 build.

$80 will yield 16GB of 1333 or 1600 memory and have zero real world impact on overall system performance.
 
I am not going over 8gb. I have no use for 16GB RAM.

teletran8 said:
I'd spend a little more, and wait a bit.

Lian Li Full Tower. (More GPU room, HD room and just more room to access things.)

Seasonic (made in USA) 850 modular. (Modualr cables make things super neat and tidy. opposite of a mess)

DDR3 2x4GB 2133 G.Skill or Mushkin. (Go fullspeed for 30.00 bux extra)

Wait a month or two for an IB 1155 mobo. (so you have native PCI-X 3.0 card slots, for when you want to drop in that 7990 haha :D).
Click to expand...
I have no interest in waiting. I don't want 2133 MHz RAM. Too overkill. I like my case better.

Danny Bui said:
I would not go with that AsRock on account of how bad the other AsRock Z68 motherboards faired in HardOCP reviews:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/12/07/asrock_z68_pro3_lga_1155_motherboard_review/
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/09/asrock_z68_extreme4_gen3_motherboard_review/

Considering how bad the more expensive Extreme4 Gen3 did, that doesn't give much hope that the Extreme3 Gen3 will be decent. I recommend spending the extra ~$43 (once you factor in the shipping cost of that AsRock mobo) for a better quality motherboard:
$180 - Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3 Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard

Another option:
$165 - Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard

Also, don't bother with going with RAM above DDR3 1600. It's a total waste with current Intel platforms.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I will definitely get the ASUS MOBO.
 
This would be a better buy if you can afford it. XFX has horrible customer support from what I've heard, while Corsair is excellent.

Stick with 1600 mhz CAS 9 RAM. Anything faster will not give you any benefits, maybe at best a 2-3 FPS boost in a 100 FPS situation.
 
My shitty Asrock only got my 2600k to 5Ghz. You should defiantly stay away from them and spend more money for less board with Asus. Then when/if you have a problem, you can wait months for them to RMA it too!;)
 
I just ordered the 2500K/AsRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 the other day as my i5-760 died unexpectedly. I've read just as many possitve reviews of the AsRock as I have negative ones, as well a number of negative reviews for Asus (MSI, Gigabyte, etc) and figured I'd give them a try. As to Pitbully only hitting 5Ghz, I'd be completely happy with 5Ghz, my i5-760 didn't OC for Jack.

Goodluck with your build
 
Final confirmation: Is everything the best it can be? Should I go ahead and purchase everything? If not, I really don't want to go over $1500 for everything but OS, Monitor, Keyboard, and Mouse. I want atleast $300 to work with on the Monitor.
 
I still do not recommend that AsRock mobo for reasons already stated: Low quality and short 1-2 year warranty. Still doesn't seem like an intelligent buy to me. For god's sake you're about to spend $470 on the GPU alone and you can't cough an additional $43 for significantly higher quality motherboard?

Hard drive wise, this Hitachi drive is faster than that WD drive:
$87 - Hitachi HDS721050CLA362 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
 
Danny Bui said:
I still do not recommend that AsRock mobo for reasons already stated: Low quality and short 1-2 year warranty. Still doesn't seem like an intelligent buy to me. For god's sake you're about to spend $470 on the GPU alone and you can't cough an additional $43 for significantly higher quality motherboard?

Hard drive wise, this Hitachi drive is faster than that WD drive:
$87 - Hitachi HDS721050CLA362 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
Click to expand...
This question is posed entirely in defense of my recent ASRock purchase:

Have you ever been to an ASRock manufacturing facility?
 
erf said:
This question is posed entirely in defense of my recent ASRock purchase:

Have you ever been to an ASRock manufacturing facility?
Click to expand...

It's not the ASRock manufacturing facility per se. It's just that the boards vary widely in quality from one sample to the next. And it happened that the [H]ardOCP had received bad copies (or purchased two samples that turned out to be bad copies) of the two ASRock Z68 boards it tested. And you'd never know how relatively good or crappy the sample you receive turns out until you open the box and run it.

Oh, well... Shit happens.
 
E4g1e said:
It's not the ASRock manufacturing facility per se. It's just that the boards vary widely in quality from one sample to the next. And it happened that the [H]ardOCP had received bad copies (or purchased two samples that turned out to be bad copies) of the two ASRock Z68 boards it tested. And you'd never know how relatively good or crappy the sample you receive turns out until you open the box and run it.

Oh, well... Shit happens.
Click to expand...
Oh, I see. Over the years I've used, EVGA, Gigabyte, Biostar, and now ASRock...I think I experienced one issue or another that could've been chalked up to "crappy" motherboard with all of them. We'll see how this ASRock board fares. So far the one thing I'm amazed with is boot time...37 seconds to desktop and ready to operate, and that's without an SSD.

Edit: It might be worth mentioning that I have virtually nothing installed on my PC but games or game related programs/benchmark tools...Windows update etc. is also set to manual.
 
erf said:
Have you ever been to an ASRock manufacturing facility?
Click to expand...
No I have not. But E4g1e pretty much summed up my thoughts. It's not like AsRock can't make good motherboard. They can:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/01/12/asrock_x79_extreme4_lga_2011_motherboard_review/

However, it's the random quality control issues that AsRock seems to have that makes me hesitant in recommending them to people:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/02/09/asrock_x79_extreme9_lga_2011_motherboard_review/6

Then there's the two poor reviews of the AsRock Z68 motherboards already linked earlier. Not to mention that AsRock mobos tends to have shorter warranties than similarily priced or featured motherboard. AsRock only has a 1 to 2 year warranty whereas Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI have three year warranties. Hence why I try not recommend AsRock.
 
I've been trying to blow up my ASRock Mobo for a year plus...can't do it. Damn thing just won't DIE! I haven't tried 1.7VCore on air yet only 1.65Vcore...I guess I should run it 1.7 or 1.8vcore. Then I could be as cool as these dudes sayin my ASRock broke after a year wahhahaha I want a longer warranty:rolleyes: like the 300.00 mobos have.
 
teletran8 said:
I've been trying to blow up my ASRock Mobo for a year plus...can't do it. Damn thing just won't DIE! I haven't tried 1.7VCore on air yet only 1.65Vcore...I guess I should run it 1.7 or 1.8vcore. Then I could be as cool as these dudes sayin my ASRock broke after a year wahhahaha I want a longer warranty:rolleyes: like the 300.00 mobos have.
Click to expand...

Good for you. Still doesn't change the results of those HardOCP reviews. And you still have a short warranty.
 
I would recommend spending a little more to get the things that have more bang/buck. The HX850 is only $20 more than the XFX after rebate, is modular, 80+ silver vs the 80+ bronze, longer warranty and all around better company to deal with.

Hold off on the graphics card, because it doesn't have a good price/performance ratio at the moment. Kepler arriving on the scene should help drive prices down on it. Even if it doesn't, you won't have anything to lose, except maybe a month of waiting time. And prices on other components can drop as well.

Do you get charged tax at Newegg? The Crucial M4 128gb is on sale for $150 right now at Amazon, if you don't get charged tax on Amazon.
 
Danny Bui said:
No I have not. But E4g1e pretty much summed up my thoughts. It's not like AsRock can't make good motherboard. They can:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/01/12/asrock_x79_extreme4_lga_2011_motherboard_review/

However, it's the random quality control issues that AsRock seems to have that makes me hesitant in recommending them to people:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/02/09/asrock_x79_extreme9_lga_2011_motherboard_review/6

Then there's the two poor reviews of the AsRock Z68 motherboards already linked earlier. Not to mention that AsRock mobos tends to have shorter warranties than similarily priced or featured motherboard. AsRock only has a 1 to 2 year warranty whereas Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI have three year warranties. Hence why I try not recommend AsRock.
Click to expand...
Cool...I'm just playing devil's advocate. It seems that all of the manufacturers when you take "reviews" into consideration could be viewed as hit or miss...that's actually my experience as a whole when it comes to PC components in general. It's like the manufactures of any given part release solid products at any given time and there ends up being no rhyme or reason behind it.

I did get a chance to read the reviews that [H] did on those ASRock Z68 boards...DAYUM that was harsh...lol.
 
Tsumi said:
I would recommend spending a little more to get the things that have more bang/buck. The HX850 is only $20 more than the XFX after rebate, is modular, 80+ silver vs the 80+ bronze, longer warranty and all around better company to deal with.

Hold off on the graphics card, because it doesn't have a good price/performance ratio at the moment. Kepler arriving on the scene should help drive prices down on it. Even if it doesn't, you won't have anything to lose, except maybe a month of waiting time. And prices on other components can drop as well.

Do you get charged tax at Newegg? The Crucial M4 128gb is on sale for $150 right now at Amazon, if you don't get charged tax on Amazon.
Click to expand...

I cannot wait. I need a good computer now. As for the gpu, why? However, I can get the hx850.

Also, no, I live in texas, so no tax.
 
If you need the graphics card only for gaming, I would wait on getting it, and just use the IGP.

Right now, AMD can pretty much charge whatever they want (within reason), because they are the only ones with 22nm cards. Kepler is due to be out sometime at the end of march/beginning of april, so if you can hold out that long, we'll most likely see some price drops, especially if Kepler does as well as expected. For the moment, you can run off the IGP of the 2500k until you get a graphics card.

Don't get that Western Digital hard drive, or any hard drive for that matter if you don't need the storage space. Hard drives are still extremely expensive at the moment. Last year you can get a 2tb hard drive for around $70.
 
256GB M4 over 128 any day. Trust me if you have no hard drive on the side for storage you are going to want more space. Other than that lookin good so far. I will look more tomorrow in detail when I get some rest.
 
Thanks for the suggestions, but I really need the space. I keep music (A LOT), pictures (again, A LOT), videos (some), school work (quite a bit), and other lesser programs.

I really CAN'T wait. Even the computer I am on is very laggy even when I just browse through websites. Also, if I wait for the new GPUs, I will have a PC that won't reap the benefits as soon as I want to.
 
Thanks everyone for the help! I think I am going to keep my build as is, though.
 
azeem40 said:
Thanks for the suggestions, but I really need the space. I keep music (A LOT), pictures (again, A LOT), videos (some), school work (quite a bit), and other lesser programs.

I really CAN'T wait. Even the computer I am on is very laggy even when I just browse through websites. Also, if I wait for the new GPUs, I will have a PC that won't reap the benefits as soon as I want to.
Click to expand...

The IGP is no slouch for just regular work. The only reason you would need the GPU is for gaming. You will find no difference between the IGP and the 7950 in terms of regular desktop usage. You will only notice it in games.

I'm not stopping you from ordering, you can do what you want. I'm just saying that's what I recommend you to do, if you can live without gaming for a few weeks. The SSD and faster processor will already make everything feel a lot faster.
 
The review isn't a Gen3 board. Wonder if that makes a difference?

I built a very similar system last month. Used the AsRock Pro3 Gen3 - great board (PCI3.0 and IB compatible, only one slot - I don't SLI/Xfire). Check this out for the CPU (we have microcenters in TX):

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1674765
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1676173

Also, FRYs has the Hyper 212+ for $25 if there's one close to you.

Good luck, you'll love it. (That's an expensive case!)
 
Tsumi said:
The IGP is no slouch for just regular work. The only reason you would need the GPU is for gaming. You will find no difference between the IGP and the 7950 in terms of regular desktop usage. You will only notice it in games.

I'm not stopping you from ordering, you can do what you want. I'm just saying that's what I recommend you to do, if you can live without gaming for a few weeks. The SSD and faster processor will already make everything feel a lot faster.
Click to expand...
Hmm, it does sound tempting.
 
david_ said:
The review isn't a Gen3 board. Wonder if that makes a difference?

I built a very similar system last month. Used the AsRock Pro3 Gen3 - great board (PCI3.0 and IB compatible, only one slot - I don't SLI/Xfire). Check this out for the CPU (we have microcenters in TX):

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1674765
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1676173

Also, FRYs has the Hyper 212+ for $25 if there's one close to you.

Good luck, you'll love it. (That's an expensive case!)
Click to expand...

I just put together the system in my sig last Friday. No issue with the Extreme3 Gen3. Installation was a breeze, all three times I had to do it due to me fubaring the registry attempting to change the default installation directory on win7 ult. Boots well under 30 seconds with the SSD. No issues with sleep mode. The UEFI has worked well for me so far, though I havent dug into it yet. I havent OC'd yet, but it is in the cards when I get a cooler.
 
Alright, thanks everyone. I am going to go ahead and mark this thread as answered.
 
Might be a bit of a gamble with a Sandforce SSD, so I'd recommend a 128GB Crucial M4, Plextor M3, or Samsung 830. You're going to pay a little more, but you'll be buying higher reliability and longevity.

The TIM is a waste of money, imo. The stuff CM included with the 212+ will work great.

Memory is an OK choice if really feel the need to pay extra for 1600, otherwise, get 1333 and save a little money.

Nice choice on the case, I'm looking at the 400R myself since it's very similar to the 500R and slightly cheaper, but $10-20 on the case shouldn't be an issue for you given your overall budget.

Excellent choice of CPU and MoBo!

Have you considered a 750W PSU which will be just fine and put some money back in your pocket?
 
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